Middle East Mired in a Culture of
Hatred

by Dr. Sami Alrabaa

25 Feb, 2009

A Palestinian presenter at Hamas Al-Aqsa Television asks a little
girl on a program for kids, "What do you want to become when you
grow up?" The girl replies, "I want to become a mujahida [fighter].
I want to liberate Palestine. I want to throw all the Jews out of
beloved Palestine. But before I die and join the Palestinian martyrs
in paradise, I want to kill as many Israelis as possible like Reem
Riyashi."

This is the kind of culture Hamas TV is spreading around among
young Palestinians and other Arabs in the region. Hamas has its
own satellite TV channel, radio station and newspapers and has
used them to garner political support during its power struggle
with Fatah.

Back in 2007, Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV aired a weekly show featuring a
Mickey Mouse look-alike who urged children to support armed
resistance against Israel. The character was beaten to death in the
show's final episode by a character portraying an Israeli. The Hamas
media effort is bankrolled by its leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal,
who sends suitcases of cash, filled with money from Saudi Arabia,
Iran, and Syria, which are smuggled into Gaza through tunnels from
Egypt.

Secular and moderate Palestinians are appalled by the extremist
propaganda of Hamas TV. Iyad Barghouthi, the director of the
Ramallah Human Rights Center, says Al-Aqsa TV is a disturbing
milestone in the rise of Islamist forces. Hamas's practices are
reminiscent of those of the Taliban, he said. Barghouthi told Der
Spiegel on-line, "Al-Aqsa TV is not only encouraging violence, it is
also spreading fanatic Islamism and racism."

Hamas defied widespread criticism among Palestinians for using a
young mother as a suicide bomber and even published photographs of
her and her two small children, posing with weapons. Reem Riyashi,
22, blew herself up in 2004 and killed four Israelis at a Gaza
border crossing after faking a disability to bypass a security
check.

The anti-Israel media landscape throughout the Arab world is no
better. In particular, the Syrian, the Saudi, and the Egyptian media
are hawkish and propagandistic. Fair and objective analysis and
information are non-existent.

The Syrian Minister of Tourism, Saadalla Agha al-Qalaa, told the
newspaper Tishreen: "The Zionists are spreading bad propaganda about
Syria to prevent tourists from visiting our country." That is
apparently the main reason why few tourists, especially Westerners,
come to Syria to spend their holidays, rather than the bad services
which the country offers tourists. When I was in Damascus in 2006, I
watched how tourists had to wait at least an hour before their
passports were processed at the airport police control. There are
only two categories of hotels: either first class or no class at
all.

The Ba'ath regime is not interested in tourism. Tourists could
infect the local population with ideas about democracy and human
rights. Tourists would also tell the Syrians another story about the
"decadent" and "unfair" West.

When I visited the southwestern border of Syria with Israel
several years ago, I told my companion, a member of the Ba'ath
party, "Look how green the Israeli side of the Golan Heights is." He
interrupted, "It is all propaganda. With the help of the Americans,
the Israelis have made it green, just to show off." I countered,
"Why don't you allow the locals who were displaced during the 1973
war to return to their homes and make this part of Syria also
green?" He responded, "It's dangerous. The Israelis could attack us
any time."

Not just the media blame Israel for all the problems the Arab
world has. School text books in all Arab countries depict an
aggressive image of Israel. The gist of this image goes like this:
Israel is an alien limb in the heart of the Arab nation. Palestine
must be liberated from the Zionists as Saladin liberated Jerusalem
from the Crusaders.

The culture of hatred must stop. Western governments must
pressure Arab countries to introduce genuine freedom of speech,
i.e., free media. Arab journalists and writers who deliver balanced
articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict are banned from publishing.
Arab regimes are suspicious of these people and, more often than
not, they are arbitrarily put behind bars and accused of spying for
the arch enemy, Israel.

I am one of those who have tried to publish articles in the Arab
press about the Arab-Israeli conflict telling readers that the image
of Israel as presented in the belligerent Arab discourse is
distorted and fabricated. I have also stressed that if the Arab
countries were as democratic as Israel, the conflict would
disappear, and Israelis and Arabs would live in peace, side by side.
If Arabs were objectively informed, they would choose to coexist
with their Israeli neighbors. Ethnic and religious minorities are
integrated in Israeli society and enjoy the same political rights as
Jews. Muslim and Christian Arabs, for example, sit in the Knesset
and say whatever they want and a Muslim Arab is a cabinet minister.

My articles have never been published. Arabs are not allowed to
know the truth. Western governments have to re-educate, at least,
their Arab allies, as the Allies did with the Germans after World
War II. The war on terror does not make any sense unless the root
causes of extremism are uprooted in the media and in the schools.

Dr. Sami Alrabaa, an ex-Muslim, is a sociology professor and an Arab/Muslim
culture specialist. Before moving to Germany he taught at Kuwait
University, King Saud University, and Michigan State University.